Despite our new AMR system’s capability to process configuration changes and daily meter reads in the background, a front end is needed to gather meter billing data and perform other configuration changes that cannot easily be handled by programs running in batch mode. A web front end seems the most likely choice for such an AMR client.

I have designed and implemented user interfaces over many years, but doing so is not my strong suit, and I don’t find in very enjoyable. For quite a while I have been searching for reasonable web creation tools that would allow quick deployment of a web front end. It is possible the search will end with Django.

To that end, I have purchased a couple of books to get the efforts up and running. They are Visual QuickPro Guide Django by Steven Holzner and Apress’ The Definitive Guide to django Web Development Done Right by Holovaty and Kaplan-Moss.